yes, i DID enjoy my summer vacation

[hth]

So I've been doing this weird thing, since last we met (Dear Readers): I've been on hiatus from fandom.

Seriously, I know nothing. I've not logged into livejournal in months. I've read no fic. I've written nothing. I'm totally out of the loop, except for occasional reports from the field from marythefan, who's been busy arriving late to the bandom party. (I continue to find its siren call quite easy to resist.)

In the meantime, I've been doing other stuff. I've traveled a little -- to a pagan festival, to see linabean, to the beach. I've caught some television that I'd foolishly put off seing (OMG, HOW DID ANYONE NOT TELL ME HOW FUCKING AWESOME THE OFFICE IS? Okay, fine. Everyone told me.) I've read many books. I've even taken up handspinning -- seriously! I make yarn now!

It's been kind of nice. Fandom has been such a huge part of my life for twelve years now that I feel like I needed a sabbatical. And now I feel like it's the first day of school -- s4 DVDs are out, s5 starts tonight! I have my shiny new notebooks, new shoes, excitement, and dread! Also, the odd thing is that lately it's like we're having some kind of strange Summer of Fandoms Past -- everything old is new again for me!

The X-Files is back -- WHO KNEW? I'm psyched about the movie, even though I'm carefully harboring low expectations. As long as they do *something* right, I'll be happy. Come on Carter -- you can meet that bar!

The Jossverse chugs along with the comic books, which are going so overall well that I didn't even grind my teeth too hard when the last issue turned out to contain lots and lots of Kennedy. Though, Xander, man -- has anyone in the history of fiction ever needed a hug more than this dude? He's like a flippin' Tom Fontana hero at this point. Also, Joss' cracky comic book/musical/webisode/short film Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is due to arrive any time now, and he'll be back on tv (Teacher! Mother! Secret lover!) at midseason with the creepy-as-fuck-looking Dollhouse. It's nice to love something that I feel I can have *high* expectations for.

Due South, you say? Well, not so much with the return-of, but TWoP just gave it an enthusiastic shout-out, inluding calling Victoria's Secret "two of the most sinuous hours you'll ever see." I'm not entirely sure what "sinuous" means in this context, but if it means fucking awesome, they're so very right. Also, Callum continues to make one badass, sexy, grizzled Cylon. Paul Haggis continues to be a Scientologist, but it's an imperfect world.

And do you know what else comes back tonight?


(That was a SPOILER cut, in case it isn't obvious. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER.)

What the hell, I'm psyched for season 5.

I have no strong feelings about Woolsey, but then, I never felt like the show made the role of the Person in Charge very significant anyway, so I'm cool with not having much reaction there. I'm kind of stoked, I guess, that Carson has several episodes, although honestly it just makes firing him at all look *that much more* utterly without point. Hey, if they wanted to make Ronon and Rodney fight over someone, why shouldn't it just have been Carson, instead of doe-eyed faux-Carson? Well, it makes sense to me, anyway.

(Also, btw, I so totally told you so about setting up a love triangle there. Everyone was like, no, no, that isn't foreshadowing at all! And I was so very very right about this very very poor idea.)

Anyway, they've promised me more Ronon torture, which is like the one thing I count on them to do once a year, and relatively well. I'm pretty fucking ticked off that we don't get the scene they promised us with Ronon cutting his hair short, which sounds like it would've been beautifully painful, and also he's so hot with the shorter hair. (Speaking of, has anyone made shareable icons of Jason with his actual-factual haircut? I kind of feel like it would be a Statement to use one as my new default, and also, so, so hot.) But no, apparently the audience is too stupid to find Ronon in a crowd except by his hair, which is a pretty great summary statement about how seriously TPTB take the character, the actor, and all of us, all rolled into one. At least this time it appears to be someone's fault other than the writers, so...yay.

They've also promised us a veritable parade of potentially recurring hot chicks, which I guess is supposed to either attract more boys to the show or prove to us that they're totally not sexist at all, they love the ladies! Well, I love the ladies, too, so hey, I'm ready for it. Convince me. (On a related note, though I've never been much of an Amanda Tapping fan, the previews of Sanctuary blew me the fuck away. Holy shit! I hope that's half as good as it looks, and not just another low-rent Witchblade/Birds of Prey/Highlander:Raven debacle that's creatively bankrupt once you scratch the hot-chicks-fighting-monsters surface.)

Oh, and in case you want to find out (or just reminisce! *g*) what I thought of the last few seasons, I have a complete listing of the SGA episodes I've lj'd about in the past. Now when people say, "Why do you hate the show so much?" instead of explaining that A) I don't hate the show at all and 2) not for lack of reasons to hate it, however -- I can just send them there! *g*

So, fandom...have I missed anything unmissable in the last few months?

Comments

[ratcreature]

Hmm, I don't know about unmissable, but lots of cool SGA fanart was posted during the paintedspires fanart challenge?

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for that link! There's some great stuff there, and I've just started to explore!

[ratcreature]

I thought you might like this because there's quite a variety of gen and pairings in the art, including some great art with Ronon, and also one can look at fanart faster than reading fanfic, so browsing through a backlog isn't as overwhelming. :)

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Welcome back. I was kind of wondering if you had disappeared into your own little black hole or something a result of Buffy hooking up with the girl in the comic after your head didn't explode all over LJ...

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Hee. I actually thought that little arc was handled very nicely -- Livia and I were joking at one point that it makes sense to think of Slayer HQ as a women's college, and that in fact the technical term for a group should be a Smith of Slayers. *g* I did have to kind of pull myself together after Buffy and Satsu had their big relationship conversation, because wow, I have so been there that Joss may owe me *royalties* for that dialogue! But I thought the whole thing was rather lovely -- no explosions over here, either of unparalleled joy or of rage! *g*

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I didn't think you'd be mad, just dazed. :)

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Oh, and pentapus drew Amanda (Highlander Amanda, not Tapping) kissing Teyla recently. Check her LJ!

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

You did not miss us, but we missed you! Glad to know you're back-ish - and really interested with the hand spinning! yarn, yay!

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I am excited to be back-ish. The spinning has been lots of fun; I'm still very, very slow at it, but I'm finding it fairly easy. Plying the fibers into actual yarn is much more difficult than spinning them, I think. If I ever get enough done to make something out of, I'll post some pictures!

[lamaudite.livejournal.com]

Hey, welcome back!

I totally hear you about Ronon's hair. It was a scene I was so looking forward to see. And hell yeah, sorta shows what the PTBs think of us all.

I heard a couple of weeks back of a very disgruntled Jason saying that season six (if it ever goes that far) would most likely be his last. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with how SciFi's been dictating that the character could not lose the hair even if it's a drag physically for the actor.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sounds like they turned it into something that really worked for the story; I think it's a real loss. Hopefully it'll at least be on the DVD extras, since apparently they shot it and everything. Between this, that, and the other, I feel like TPTB are not very good at earning trust from and taking care of their actors, which is a damn shame. They have some really talented actors to work with.

[jcalanthe]

Lovely to see you back in these parts!

I'm so glad it's not just me out of bandom...

What pagan festival, if you don't mind me asking?

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Thanks, it's nice to be (mostly!) back! I went to Trillium, which is one of the annual ADF festivals. It's smallish and low-key, but it attracts a lot of our real movers and shakers, and I got to meet some of the most amazing people, and buy some truly awesome mead!